While we await the judge's decision on the division of Paul McCartney's fortune between himself and the estranged Heather Mills, it's worth wondering what the feminist line is on divorce settlements - this one in particular, those of the super-rich generally, and finally those of everyone else.

Old-fashioned feminism would hold it to be sisterly always to be on the side of the woman, whether in the middle of a divorce or not. On divorcing, it would enjoin us to root for as large a settlement for her as possible. If it happened that the man she was divorcing was incredibly rich, and she hadn't actually been with him all that long, and maybe it wasn't strictly fair, well, never mind. This isolated instance of justice working in the woman's favour would make up for all those other times when it didn't.

This thinking was not just a kneejerk reaction based on centuries of men holding all the marital cards. It was based on real events, as they say at the pictures - a marriage breaking down in the 70s would typically leave the woman holding the baby. The Equal Pay Act was not passed until 1970; the Sex Discrimination Act not until 1975; it was not unusual for large, reputable organisations to expect female employees to resign when they got married, and certainly when they had children.

Where this applied to divorce was that the female party had nothing else to go to, so of course she would be left with the children. She had often contributed nothing financially to the household since having them, but was of course deemed to have contributed the children themselves. Now 70% of couples with children both work, and in the remaining 30% the partner staying at home is not necessarily the woman. The idea that the woman has to be reimbursed for being in the marriage and having children doesn't make financial sense - unless the marriage or the children have cost her her job. This is obviously a moot point in the Mills-McCartney marriage, since it's hard to say that either of them works, as such, but let's leave that aside. McCartney brought out an album: just because it sucked doesn't mean it wasn't work.

Sorry, returning to the old-school divorce - my memory of a 70s divorce was that paternal visiting rights were just those: regular but short visits, with maybe the odd holiday. Fatherhood has evolved since then. Fathers for Justice would disagree, as would any father, I'm sure, in an extremely bitter break-up. But in civilised separations, absent fathers are much less absent. This doesn't mean they shouldn't be held to financial account for their children, but there is something punitive in the feminist attitude to divorce - as if the man ought to shell out for the injustice of running for the hills and leaving the woman to look after the children.

It is time to interject into this Fay Weldon-esque landscape the figure of a father who actually quite likes his children, and is more likely to wrangle with their mother over access to them than he is to be trying to uncouple himself. I point this out not in defence of men, but because the alternative position - that only women have a meaningful bond with their offspring - plays into the hands of misogynists far more, portraying us as at the mercy of our biology.

So if we agree that the settlement should not be punitive, we should admit that in this case, 50:50 would not be fair. £50m of McCartney's fortune, however large it is, would not be fair. It is bad for women generally when a man of very high profile gets screwed like this. It is simply a victory for those who like to see the sexes ranged against one another in enmity, and a blow to those of us who believe that proper equality will bring us closer and more affably together.